Report: Number of US Millionaires to Double by 2020

The number of American families with a net worth of more than $1 million will double by 2020, according to a report by the Deloitte Center for Financial Services.

Today, there are 10.5 million such families in the U.S., a figure that will climb to pre-crisis levels by 2015 and reach 20.6 million in 2020.

While the U.S. will hang on to the top spot, China will lead the way in millionaire growth, the report said, followed by Brazil and Russia, CNNMoney reports.

"There is going to be very fast growth, but it will take a lot longer to reach anything like the wealth in the developed world," says the report's lead author Andrew Freeman.

California will be home to the most number of wealthy households by 2020, while Wyoming is forecast to have the fewest.

New Jersey will have the highest density of millionaires with a quarter of all households projected to be valued at more than $1 million, the report adds.

While more Americans will join the ranks of the wealthy, more will still encounter problems.

Unemployment rates are still high, and good news one week on the jobs front is often followed by bad news another week.

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits has risen recently to its highest levels in eight months, and although temporary or seasonal factors affect that number, fundamentally, joblessness remains a problem for the U.S. economy.

"The trend is clearly upward, so that's disconcerting," says Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist for Swiss Re, according to the Associated Press.

"When you get three or four weeks in a row of special factors, they're no longer so special."

The number of American families with a net worth of more than $1 million will double by 2020, according to a report by the Deloitte Center for Financial Services.
Today, there are 10.5 million such families in the U.S., a figure that will climb to pre-crisis levels by 2015...